


With Odds Like That

by sophia_sol



Category: Bandom, My Chemical Romance
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Remix, artist, college professor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-27
Updated: 2012-03-27
Packaged: 2017-11-02 14:48:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/370176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sophia_sol/pseuds/sophia_sol
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Life goes on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	With Odds Like That

**Author's Note:**

  * For [prettykitty_aya (words_unravel)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/words_unravel/gifts).
  * Inspired by [countdown](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/7503) by prettykitty_aya. 



> Title is from Ali in the Jungle, by The Hours. Thanks to Verity for the beta!

1.

"Professor Way?"

Gerard spends a lot more time these days working from his office -- it feels wrong to be at home, with Frank no longer there. The downside is getting interrupted by students. He sighs and turns from the computer where he's been attempting to find a replacement life model for one of his classes.

"How can I help you?" he asks.

The student, one of his first-years, ducks his head shyly and comes into the office. He's having trouble figuring out the perspective stuff Gerard had been talking about in the morning class, so Gerard explains again, pulling out a sketchbook and a pencil for illustrative examples of what he's talking about.

Soon the kid's nodding his head, asking sensible questions and trying things out on the page himself. It looks like he's got it.

Every time he does this Gerard feels all warm and pleased; every time he's able to help a kid genuinely _understand_ stuff, every time he gets an earnest thanks and a relieved smile and the knowledge he's made a difference in someone's life. He waves the kid out the door and turns back to the computer, reinvigorated.

If Gerard's honest with himself -- and he's working on that -- he doesn't mind being interrupted by students at all.

 

2.

"Every fucking year!" Gerard finishes. "Fucking models."

Lindsey nods, an appreciative audience for Gerard's rant.

"How do you do it?" he asks.

She shrugs and removes her cigarette. "Deal with it. Swear a lot. Find a new one."

"Right," Gerard says, deflating. "I know. I just want _one semester_ to run fucking smoothly." He takes a drag from his own cigarette and stares out at the stark and grey campus buildings. When he'd first started working here, they'd made him want to draw, to paint, to create a world deserving of their impressive bleakness: an apocalypse, maybe, or some other dystopia. Lately the bleakness has just been wearing him down.

"Fuck, I've got more marking to get done for this afternoon," says Lindsey. She stubs out her butt on the concrete wall beside them and drops it. "Gotta run. But hey, good luck. You'll find someone."

She ruffles his hair and then she's off, a whirlwind of colour and indomitability in beautiful contrast to the campus around her. Gerard watches her go and smiles around his cigarette.

 

3.

Gerard hits speed-dial and listens to the phone ring. "Hey, Mikey," he says. "What's up?"

He stretches out more comfortably on his bed, listens to Mikey relay his sharp observations of the music industry. The familiarity of Mikey's frustrations and Gerard's responses is part of the regular pattern of Gerard's days. He likes it.

"We're signing a new band, though," Mikey says, which is a little less common.

"Oh?" he says. He curls himself up around a pillow, ignoring the empty space beside him, and asks, "What are they like?"

"Young and full of themselves." Mikey's voice is dry as dust.

Gerard laughs. "Fuck off, you know what I mean."

Mikey relents and tells Gerard about their sound, their skills and their problems, how much promise they have and where they might crack.

Gerard wonders sometimes what would have happened if he'd started a band, like he'd once thought of doing; but these days it's only an idle thought. Gerard loves what he does.

"I started a new painting," Gerard says. He knows Mikey's been worried about him.

"Cool," Mikey says, and doesn't mention how long it's been since Gerard's done any art at all. Mikey's the best. "What's it of?"

Gerard thinks of the new model for his class, of the way that even rock-still he's vibrating with energy that itches to explode out of a page, and says, "A war. Between vampires and werewolves." The painting's already unfolded itself in his mind, and though all he's done so far is sketch out how he wants to set the scene, he knows it'll be great when it's done.

He tells Mikey about it, about the two sides who are only superficially different, about the despair and the blood and the death, about the lead werewolf caught mid-leap by a vampire but still full of vitality and drive for this one instant.

Mikey says he'd totally read a comic book about it, and Gerard is briefly tempted. But as much as he loves comics, he also loves this. He loves the way a single moment can capture an entire story in itself.

He promises Mikey he'll draw him a comic about killer robot unicorns instead, and doesn't think about the last time he drew unicorns for Mikey, back before Frank left.

 

4.

Hanging out at a shitty bar listening to a shitty opening band isn't what Gerard had intended to do with his evening, but it's what happened. Gerard can and will blame it on Mikey.

Mikey's disappeared elsewhere to go network or whatever the fuck he does, but Gerard is happy to sit where he is, enjoy his coke, and wait for Ray's new band to go on.

It doesn't take long before the shitty band leaves, and Gerard looks up just in time to watch Ray walk out, guitar in hand, with a couple other guys Gerard vaguely recognizes from other shows Mikey's dragged him to. Gerard's pretty sure the guys are decent. Thank god, he thinks, because Ray was miles above everyone else in his previous band. Ray deserves a band as awesome as he is.

The drummer counts them in and they slam into their first song, and yeah. Yeah. They're pretty damn awesome.

Gerard cheers along with the crowd and lets himself get lost in the music.

 

5.

Gerard sets his paintbrush down and stares in quiet pride at his latest painting. It looks almost like it did in his head, which isn't doing too bad.

When the phone rings, it startles him. He nearly falls off his chair fumbling for it, and as he hits the button to answer, he vaguely remembers hearing it ring an hour ago. Maybe. Oops.

"Hi?" he says, and when he hears his mom's voice at the other end of the line he finds he is not crushed to realize it isn't Frank calling him.

I'm okay, Gerard thinks. I'm okay.


End file.
